WPLBookClub

The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham (June 2009)

2009-05-12T13:46:00.006-04:00

Please visit our new blog at http://wplbookclub.wordpress.com/

Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s,The Painted Veilis the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life and learn how to love. The Painted Veilis a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive.

W. Somerset Maugham was one of the twentieth century’s most popular novelists as well as a celebrated playwright, critic, and short story writer. He was born in Paris but grew up in England and served as a secret agent for the British during World War I. He wrote many novels, including the classics Of Human Bondage, The Razor’s Edge, Cakes and Ale, Christmas Holiday, The Moon and Sixpence, Theatre, and Up at the Villa.

Find out a bit more about the book on Wikipedia.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book The Painted Veil

You can also borrow the movie The Painted Veil

Watchmen by Alan Moore (May 2009)

2009-04-20T18:04:00.003-04:00

The Waterloo Public Library's Book Club meets on the second Monday of every month. The book being discussed at the May 11th meeting is Watchmen by Alan Moore. Hope to see you at the meeting!

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin. One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial bestseller, WATCHMEN has been studied on college campuses across the nation and is considered a gateway title, leading readers to other graphic novels such as V FOR VENDETTA, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and THE SANDMAN series. SOON TO BE A FEATURE FILM!

To learn more about the background, story, characters and themes of the Watchmen series click here.

Biography and links - Alan Moore (Biography Research Guide)

To read an interview with Alan Moore click here.

To place a hold on a WPL copy of the book click here.

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (April 2009)

2009-03-04T17:42:00.005-05:00

Check out this entry on Wikipedia about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Read a biography of Douglas Adams here.

To borrow a WPL copy of the book click here.

A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright (March 9)

2009-02-09T20:29:00.002-05:00

Summary:

Each time history repeats itself, the cost goes up. The twentieth century-a time of unprecedented progress-has produced a tremendous strain on the very elements that comprise life itself: This raises the key question of the twenty-first century: How much longer can this go on? With wit and erudition, Ronald Wright lays out a-convincing case that history has always provided an answer, whether we care to notice or not. From Neanderthal man to the Sumerians to the Roman Empire, A Short History of Progress dissects the cyclical nature of humanity''s development and demise, the 10,000-year old experiment that we''ve unleashed but have yet to control. It is Wright''s contention that only by understanding and ultimately breaking from the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we avoid the onset of a new Dark Age. Wright illustrates how various cultures throughout history have literally manufactured their own end by producing an overabundance of innovation and stripping bare the very elements that allowed them to initially advance. Wright''s book is brilliant; a fascinating rumination on the hubris at the heart of human development and the pitfalls we still may have time to avoid.

For summaries, criticism and other things to read about the book check out Wikipedia and Anansi Press and CBC Ideas - Massey Lectures 2004

To find out more about the author click here.

Click here to search for this book at WPL.

Blindness by Jose Saramago (February 9)

2009-01-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

Summary:
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit.

For summaries, discussion questions, and reading guides related to this novel, please visit the following websites: Bookrags, Barnes & Noble and Wikipedia.

To learn more about the author, visit Jose Saramago’s biography on Wikipedia.

Blindness is available in the WPL collection.

If you enjoyed Blindness, you may want to read Saramago's book Seeing, which is set in the same country and features a few of the same characters.

The life and times of the thunderbolt kid : a memoir by Bill Bryson (January 12)

2008-12-08T16:12:00.000-05:00

Summary:
From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. A book that delivers on the promise that it is “laugh-out-loud funny.” Some say that the first hints that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came from his discovery, at the age of six, of a woolen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people’s hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson’s first travel book opened with the immortal line, “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.” In this hilarious new memoir, he travels back to explore the kid he once was and the weird and wonderful world of 1950s America. He modestly claims that this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting much larger slowly. But for the rest of us, it is a laugh-out-loud book that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young.

For summaries, discussion questions, and reading guides related to this novel, visit the following websites: LitLovers and About.com.

To learn more about the author, visit Bill Bryson’s biography on Wikipedia.

Click here to search for this book in the WPL collection.

WPL also has the e-audiobook through Download Library or Net Library.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith (December 8)

2008-11-10T20:37:00.014-05:00

Summary:

“In the vibrant multicultural city of London, three families from different backgrounds find themselves linked in every conceivable way: personally, politically, historically and genetically. In White Teeth, these three families all attempt to come to terms with the rich ethnic diversity that their North London community offers. At the center of the novel is the hapless Archibald Jones who can’t seem to make a decision without flipping a coin. And in his chosen city, this proves to be an unlikely advantage as luck is blind to race. This poignant novel is an excellent examination of tolerance and changing attitudes driven by rich characters, taught writing and a bustling city.” - From the Editors

Click here to search for this book in the WPL collection.

To learn more about the author, visit Zadie Smith's biography on Wikipedia.

For summaries and discussion questions related to this novel, visit the LitLovers website.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (November 10)

2008-10-06T20:30:00.007-04:00

Summary:

"When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is a dull country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, and begins a devastating spiral into deceit and despair. Flaubert's novel scandalized its readers when it was first published in 1857, and it remains unsurpassed in its unveiling of character and society." - From the Publisher

For summaries, discussion questions, and reading guides related to this novel, visit the Sparknotes, About.com, and Cliffs Notes websites.

To learn more about the author, visit Gustave Flaubert's biography on Wikipedia.

Click here to search for this book in the WPL collection. You can also download Madame Bovary in "ebook" format for free at the Project Gutenberg website.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (October 6)

2008-09-08T20:30:00.007-04:00

Summary:
“When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.” - From the Publisher

A reading guide for this book and Gregory Maguire's biography is available on the author's website. There is also a discussion guide available through the NoveList database; you will need enter your WPL library card number to view this resource.

Click here to search for this book in the WPL collection.

If you enjoy reading Wicked, try the sequel Son of a Witch. The third book in the Wicked Years series, A Lion Among Men, is due to be released this Fall.

The 100-Mile Diet - 2008's ONE BOOK ONE COMMUNITY SELECTION (September 8)

2008-08-11T20:30:00.009-04:00

100 Mile Diet is the Waterloo Region’s One Book, One Community title for 2008.

Summary: “The remarkable, amusing and inspiring adventures of a Canadian couple who make a year-long attempt to eat foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment.

When Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon learned that the average ingredient in a North American meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate, they decided to launch a simple experiment to reconnect with the people and places that produced what they ate. For one year, they would only consume food that came from within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver apartment. The 100-Mile Diet was born.

The couple’s discoveries sometimes shook their resolve. It would be a year without sugar, Cheerios, olive oil, rice, Pizza Pops, beer, and much, much more. Yet local eating has turned out to be a life lesson in pleasures that are always close at hand. They met the revolutionary farmers and modern-day hunter-gatherers who are changing the way we think about food. They got personal with issues ranging from global economics to biodiversity. They called on the wisdom of grandmothers, and immersed themselves in the seasons. They discovered a host of new flavours, from gooseberry wine to sunchokes to turnip sandwiches, foods that they never would have guessed were on their doorstep.

The 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted, attracting media and grassroots interest that spanned the globe. The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating tells the full story, from the insights to the kitchen disasters, as the authors transform from megamart shoppers to self-sufficient urban pioneers. The 100-Mile Diet is a pathway home for anybody, anywhere.” - From the Publisher

Visit the official 100 Mile Diet book companion website which features a blog detailing the authors' current activities. CBC also has a transcript of an interview with Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon.

100 Mile Diet is the 2008 book selection for the Waterloo Region's One Book One Community (OBOC) program. If you are interested in resources and events organized by the OBOC Committee to celebrate 100 Mile Diet and to create awareness of locally produced food, visit the OBOC blog and website.

Click here to search for this book in the WPL collection.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (August 11)

2008-07-14T20:30:00.005-04:00

Summary:
“Audrey Niffenegger''s innovative debut, The Time Traveler's Wife, is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing.

The Time Traveler’s Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare''s marriage and their passionate love for each other, as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals -- steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.” - Publisher's Description

If you would like to delve deeper into this book, there are reading guides available (see ReadingGroupGuides.com and Random House UK), critical reviews from various newspapers, and a biography of author Audrey Niffenegger.

Click here to search for this book in the WPL collection.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (July 14)

2008-06-10T10:00:00.001-04:00

"Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.

Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions, where the business was born, to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike, where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths-from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate." (description from the book jacket)

There are several reading guides for Fast Food Nation that feature summaries, reviews, lists of read-alike titles, the author's biography, and a list of websites for further reading: BookBrowse, ReadingGroupGuides, and Harper Collins. There are also a variety of discussion questions to explore here, here, and here. For more information about the author's personal background visit Eric Schlosser's Wikipedia biography.

Click here if you would like to place a hold on one of WPL's copies of Fast Food Nation.

Have your say in our comments section: has this book (or any other book) made you reconsider your food choices?

Calling All Book Club Participants - Share Your Experiences!

2008-05-13T14:23:00.010-04:00

The New Quarterly: Canadian Writers and Writing (TNQ) is a publication based out of the University of Waterloo that features poetry, fiction, interviews, and articles that showcase Canada’s emerging writers. For their Summer issue, TNQ is examining the presence of book clubs in the Waterloo Region. If you currently or have ever participated in a book club in any form, you are invited to share your insights on any of the following topics:

The Lore: the oral history of area book clubs. What do you think motivates like-minded people to gather and explore works through book clubs? Who founds, participates in, and sustains these clubs? Do you have any tales about fellow readers, or about WPL, KPL or local booksellers who have helped to establish clubs in the past three decades?

The Rules: the conventions for a successful book club. Are there dos and don’ts that can make or break a group? For example: one group’s “wine and pretzels only” rule helps minimize competing hosts; another group reads Dickens’ works strictly in the order they were written—a rule that makes “reading ahead” a deal-breaker! What is your club’s bottom line and why?

The Reads: matching writers’ works with readers. What would you say are some of the principles of attraction between readers and writers? What can each learn from the other? What do you think book clubs reveal about literary culture, especially how it’s celebrated, critiqued and circulated in our community?

The List: what kinds of clubs thrive and why? There are social clubs, interest clubs, neighbourhood clubs, work-based clubs, educational clubs, etc.. What’s a fit for you and why? What do you think these differences reveal about priorities and gaps in literacy and/or the cultural makeup of our region?

If you would like to share your thoughts on any of these topics, please send your ideas to Susan Scott at sscott@gto.net by May 20th.

An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark (June 9)

2008-04-30T16:08:00.013-04:00

An Audience of Chairs opens with Moranna MacKenzie living alone in her ancestral Cape Breton farmhouse, waging a war with the symptoms of bipolar disorder and grieving the loss of her two daughters, taken from her over thirty years previously.

In her early years, Moranna’s accomplishments and beauty, along with the protection of a father who saw glimmers of his suicidal wife in his beloved daughter, allow her to struggle through childhood and adolescence in Sydney Mines relatively unscathed. She is a gifted pianist, a magazine covergirl, and a promising actress when she makes a brilliant marriage to an up-and-coming young journalist, Duncan. But she soon finds herself unmoored by motherhood, and the oddities that the people in her life have always chosen to overlook become more difficult to disguise with drama and wit when maternal expectations are placed upon her. Her staged life comes crashing down around her ears when she is left alone with her daughters and in a manic artistic phase risks their lives terribly. Her family can no longer explain away her eccentricities, her husband forsakes her, and she is institutionalized, her children taken from her forever.

She enthralls the audiences in her mind – in reality an audience of chairs – with daily virtuoso performances on the piano board, a silent keyboard upon which she does battle with her demons through the music of Chopin and Rachmaninov.

Through these and other ingenious – and often hilarious – strategies, Moranna has over the years constructed a life of delicate balance, all of which is jeopardized one day by a glimpse of television. Visiting town with Bun, she is astonished to see her now-grown daughter Bonnie being interviewed for a local station about a climatalogical lecture she is to give, to be soon followed by her wedding in Halifax. Moranna knows she must make what will certainly be a surprise appearance at the wedding. But this means a high-stakes gamble with everything she has–her pride, her precarious mental health, her hope for a measure of grace in the world. (Summary is adapted from Amazon.com)

If you would like to learn about this Canadian author, visit here and here. There is also an online reader's guide available that features questions related to the novel. To place a hold on a WPL copy of this book, visit here, click on "Place Hold on Item," then enter your name, card #, and PIN.

What did you think of this book? Post a comment to discuss your opinion with other readers!

Millroy the Magician by Paul Theroux (May 12)

2008-04-08T14:48:00.022-04:00

“Fourteen-year-old Jilly Farina was enthralled with Millroy the Magician at the Barnstable County Fair. After all, he once turned a girl from the audience into a glass of milk and drank her. But when Jilly stepped into the wickerwork coffin during a performance, she had no idea he would transform her dreary life into something truly magical, and a touch bizarre.For Millroy was no ordinary magician. He could smell the future, and Jilly was going to be part of it. Yet not even Millroy could foresee how far determination and a dream could take him, as he and his new young assistant hit the road -and the airwaves -- to save America's unhealthy appetite and floundering soul....” (Amazon.com)

Read Paul Theroux’s biography, a Plot Summary of Millroy the Magician, and place a hold on WPL’s copy of this book.

If you've read and enjoyed Millroy the Magician you might also enjoy:

The Rope Trick (2002) by Lloyd Alexander
Following the death of her verbally abusive, magician father, Lidi continues the family tradition and travels from town to town entertaining crowds with her magic tricks. Accompanying her are Jericho, her canvasmaster, and later Daniella who predicts the future and Julian, a tenant farmer who's been badly beaten. Lidi travels in search of Ferramondo, the famous magician who performs the rope trick, where the magician climbs a stiff rope and disappears when he reaches the top. This little troupe meets both good and bad people on the road but, when Scabbia and his cronies descend upon them and burn their wagons, they replicate the rope trick and are whisked away to another land where Ferramondo awaits them. (195 pages)

Animal Planet (1995) by Scott Bradfield
In this satirical look at marketing gone haywire, the animals of Earth can talk; and they decide they've had enough of being pets or caged animals in a zoo. They quickly find that freedom means having to work for humans, but they adapt to that life. Charlie the Crow becomes a celebrity, appearing on talk shows until the animal revolution is such a media event that Charlie and his friend Buster head to Antarctica to escape from the notoriety. (231 pages)

Killer Diller: A Novel (1991) by Clyde Edgerton
First introduced in Edgerton's Walking Across Egypt, Wesley Benfield is a former car thief who had changed his old ways, but couldn't resist the temptation of keys left in a white Lincoln Continental. He's now part of the "Back on Track Again" project sponsored by a Baptist college whose president and provost love to receive credit for helping underdogs. Wesley's assigned task is to teach bricklaying to teenaged Vernon, a mentally handicapped but musically talented young man. The irrepressible Wesley settles in and organizes a band that plays fast and loose with gospel music. He also dates a girl from campus and, with an infectious sense of humor, tweaks his nose at certain holier-than-thou Christian members of Ballard University. The novel offers a warm-hearted and comic poke at judgmental behavior and attitudes occasionally associated with some Christian denominations.

Sati (1990) by Christopher Pike

One night while driving through the Arizona desert, trucker Michael picks up a pretty teen-age hitchhiker who calls herself Sati. Letting her stay the night on his couch, she announces the next morning that she is God. Preaching a message of happiness and joy, she holds meetings and begins to touch the lives of all around her. More than anyone else, Michael wonders who Sati is and where she's come from in this Young Adult author's first adult novel.

(This list is courtesy of the “What Do I Read Next?” database, available through the WPL's website. Click on "What Do I Read Next?" on this webpage and enter your WPL card number and PIN when prompted.)

We invite your comments about this book - did you enjoy Millroy the Magician? Why (or why not)?

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (April 14th)

2008-03-10T10:21:00.004-04:00

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. The novel explores themes of women in subjugation, and the various means by which they gain agency against a backdrop of the establishment of a totalitarian theocratic state. Sumptuary laws (dress codes) play a key role in imposing social control within the new society.
The novel is often studied by school and college students. The American Library Association lists it in "10 Most Challenged Books of 1999" and as number 37 on the "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000" due to many complaints from parents of pupils regarding the novel's anti-religious content and sexual references.

The Handmaid's Tale won the Governor General's Award for 1985, and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. It was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award. It has been adapted several times into performance works.
(Wikipedia)

*********************

Read The Handmaid's Tale Study Guide here. (SparkNotes)

See Reading Group Guides for other books by Margaret Atwood here.

Read a biography of Margaret Atwood and list of her other works here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (March 10, 2008)

2008-02-17T13:08:00.005-05:00

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemnas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnivoc, an impoverished student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker seemingly for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil. Raskolnikov also strives to be an extraordinary being, similar to Napoleon, who can murder without repercussions.

Book Club - Reading Guide (Penguin Group)

Biography of Fyodor Dostoyevsky here.

Crime and Punishment (Wikipedia) including a Plot Summary, Characters, Symbology, Film Adaptations and more

Review and Summary here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (February 2008)

2008-01-10T10:20:00.000-05:00

About the book:

During the height of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1971, the sons of two allegedly reactionary doctors are sent to a remote village on the fictional mountain Phoenix of the Sky to be 're-educated' by hard work and peasant living. There, the two characters meet the daughter of the local tailor (the Little Seamstress) and discover a collection of various translated Western novels hidden by another city boy sent to the country for re-education, Four-Eyes. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.

To place a hold on a WPL copy of the book click here or to place a hold on the DVD click here.

Read the Discussion Questions here (ReadingGroupGuides.com).

Learn more about the Cultural Revolution in China here (Wikpedia).

If you've read and enjoyed Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress you might also enjoy:

Anchee Min, Wild Ginger: A Novel (2002). Wild Ginger tells the story of two girls in Shanghai caught between their personal desires and party politics during China's Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Min crafts a tale of coming-of-age and thwarted passion while exploring the pain and psychological damage inflicted during Mao's regime.

Gao Xingjian, One Man's Bible (2002). Nobel-Prize winner Gao Xingjian follows up his critically acclaimed first novel, Soul Mountain, with this fictionalized memoir of growing up during the Cultural Revolution which captures the anxiety of the time and the effects of oppression on the spirit. The long-exiled narrator recalls his youth at the request of a Western lover who believes healing and memory are intricately connected.

Jian Ma, Red Dust: A Path Through China (2001). In 1983, Jian Ma left his life and his home in Beijing behind him and took off on a journey of exploration into his country and himself with little more than a camera, a notebook, and Leaves of Grass. Three years of wandering the western border of China, as well as remote areas of Tibet and Myanmar, result in much more than a travelogue: he creates a funny, frightening, often surprising portrait of Chinese society and the enduring appeal of the adventure-quest story.

Ha Jin, In the Pond (1998). Shao Bin is a maintenance employee at a fertilizer plant and artist whose loyal work over the years is steadfastly ignored -- at least until he publishes a satirical cartoon. The consequences of that small act of rebellion change everything in this comic send-up of bureaucracy and political allegory that resonates with readers far from Ha Jin's Communist China.

Mo Yan, Red Sorghum: A Novel of China (1993). Winner of several literary awards and inspiration for an Oscar-nominated film, Red Sorghum depicts the turbulent and brutal unrest of China's countryside during the 1920s and 1930s, as a family is caught in the struggle against Japanese invaders and Chinese warlords.

Ji-li Jiang, Red Scarf Girl (1997). Ji-li Jiang writes a unique memoir of coming-of-age during China's Cultural Revolution. Taught by government propaganda to despise old culture and habits, she describes a Communist regime she both believed in and came to doubt as she is asked to denounce her family and testify against her imprisoned father.

The Attack by Yasmina Khadra (January 8th, 2008 Book Club meeting)

2007-12-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

Dr. Amin Jaafari is an Arab-Israeli surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. As an admired and respected member of his community, he has carved a space for himself and his wife, Sihem, at the crossroads of two troubled societies. Jaafari’s world is abruptly shattered when Sihem is killed in a suicide bombing.

As evidence mounts that Sihem could have been responsible for the catastrophic bombing, Jaafari begins a tortured search for answers. Faced with the ultimate betrayal, he must find a way to reconcile his cherished memories of his wife with the growing realization that she may have had another life, one that was entirely removed from the comfortable, modern existence that they shared.

Book Discussion Questions (from Random House):

What was your reaction to the novel’s powerful opening scene? How did your perception of this scene shift as the narrator’s life later unfolded for you?
What were your initial perceptions of Amin and Sihem’s marriage? Whom did you trust during the interrogation in chapter four?
Why does Kim remain so supportive of Amin? In what way is her friendship different from Navid’s? Why are they more patient with him than most of their colleagues are?
Discuss the very concept of an attack, which forms the novel’s title. What is the nature of the attacks that take place in the book, including not only the terrorist explosions but also the beating Amin receives when he tries to return to home. What emotional and psychological attacks take place? What motivates the novel’s numerous attackers?
How were you affected by the structure of the novel, including the author’s use of present tense, the first-person narration, and the way the timeline unfolds? What makes fiction itself a useful form in examining horrific realities?
Revisit the passages that emphasize two of the novel’s elderly characters: Kim’s grandfather, Old Yehuda, who in chapter six recalls Hitler’s rise; and in chapter sixteen, Omr, Amin’s great-uncle, who recalls the destruction of family orchards to make way for an Israeli colony. What do Yehuda and Omr reveal about the history of violence, not only in the Middle East but throughout humanity?
At the end of chapter seven, Amin tells Kim he has no idea why he did not tell Navid about the letter. In your opinion, why did he keep the receipt of Sihem’s letter a secret?
In the novel’s latter chapters, Amin believes his wife was having a romantic affair with Adel. What parallels exist between her actual liaisons with him and the infidelities usually associated with adultery? Was Sihem seduced?
In chapter nine, Amin’s taxi driver lauds a militant imam and plays one of his recordings. What elements of persuasion did you detect in the imam’s diatribe? What similar tactics are used by religious and political leaders in other circumstances around the world?
In chapter eleven, the imam at the Grand Mosque tells Amin, “The margin between assimilation and disintegration is quite narrow. There’s not much room for maneuver” [p. 150]. Do you agree? Is assimilation a dangerous goal? Knowing what you do about Amin’s upbringing, is it surprising that he was an advocate for assimilation? Does assimilation require a secular society?
What is Amin’s goal in investigating the truth about Sihem himself, and confronting those who assisted her, rather than letting the Israeli authorities handle it? In the end, has he achieved his quest?
Adel and the militants Amin encounters emphasize their anger about being humiliated, saying emotional and cultural destruction are just as devastating as physical destruction. What do these observations imply about solutions for peace? What did you learn from the novel–not only about daily life in the Middle East but also about the prospects for peace?
The author is a retired army officer from Algeria, a former French colony. After he won a small French literary prize for a collection of short stories, his writing came to the attention of Algerian army officials and he was forced to submit future works to army censors. Thus, he created a female pseudonym to avoid censorship. He now lives in France and has since revealed his true name, Mohammed Moulessehoul. In what way did his life prepare him to write The Attack? Would your impressions of the novel have been different had you thought the author was female?
Compare The Attack to the author’s previous novel, The Swallows of Kabul, which is set in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule. In what ways do these novels complement each other? How do the dynamics of marriage play out in each of these books?

Find about more about the author here. (Barnes & Noble interview)

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

As for my and my house by Sinclair Ross (December 2007)

2007-11-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

As For Me and My House, is a novel by Sinclair Ross (New York, 1941; Toronto, 1957), explores the spiritual, social and natural forces which threaten to crack a strained marriage. Philip Bentley, a thwarted artist turned minister, and his wife have just moved to Horizon, a small Saskatchewan town struggling through the 1930s.

Their story is told in diary form by Mrs Bentley, whose descriptions of Horizon's false-fronted stores become increasingly suggestive of the Bentley's false-fronted lives. She also records the bleak oppression of a pretentious and puritanical social ambience, and of a constantly threatening natural environment which assaults the town's flimsy structures with seasonal cycles of heat and cold, dust and snow. The novel closes with the Bentleys adopting Philip's illegitimate child, determined to make a new life beyond Horizon. Ross depicts the trials of small-town life on the Prairies with a starkly repetitive style and beautiful clarity (taken from The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Read a brief biography of the author here.

Narrative Technique in Sinclair Ross' As For Me and My House (Studies in Canadian Literature) by Paul Denham

"As If I Really Mattered": the Narrator of Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House (Studies in Canadian Literature) by Anne Compton

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope - November 12th

2007-10-23T09:54:00.000-04:00

This novel concerns the adventures of Rudolf Rassendyll. He is a young gentleman in the fictional land of Ruritania. He bears a strong relation to the king in looks at least and there are rumours that certain dishonourable acts had occurred between the king and one of Ruolf's ancestors six generations ago. Rudolf is charming, witty and courageous. He sets out on a supposed fishing expedition to Tyrol but intends to see Rudolf the Fifth crowned in Streslau. He learns that the king's throne is in danger and so Rudolf makes his way to Zenda. He meets the king himself and they get on well, but a drugged bottle send by Michael leaves Rudolf in a stupor unable to defend his crown. Our hero, Rassendyll must step in for the other Rudolf. We learn of his adventures as the king's double and the true love of Flavia (the king's betrothed) who he gallantly gives up finally with the kingdom. Although it is a fairly slim novel and far-fetched in the extreme, it was hugely popular. As such, in the sequel, Rupert of Hentzau - a villain from Zenda - is defeated and Rudolf has a second chance with Flavia and the throne though this time he unable to make a decision since fate intervenes.

Prisoner of Zenda (Wikipedia) here.

Read the book online here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart (October 15, 2007)

2007-09-25T09:12:00.000-04:00

A fictional account of Elizabeth's Smart's intense love affair with poet George Barker.

Read a biography of Elizabeth Smart (from Wikipedia) here.

Read a review of the book here.

Read literary criticism about the book(from Studies in Canadian Literature) here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Smoke by Elizabeth Ruth (September 10, 2007)

2007-08-21T12:47:00.000-04:00

In the 1950s, in the Ontario tobacco-growing community of Smoke, a young boy on the verge of manhood is scarred forever. A night out with his buddies, too much booze and a lit cigarette, and Buster McFiddie's life will never be the same. Through the process of healing, one man's voice speaks to him, softly to ease his pain, spinning yarns of The Purple Gang, the notorious Detroit mob. It is the voice of John Gray, the town doctor, and soon it’s clear that telling these tales means as much to Doc as hearing them means to Buster. In an era of conformity, a disfigured boy tries to move his life forward, and an old man grapples desperately with his past: the convergence of two lives on the cusp will change each of them, and the small-town world that binds them, in ways they could not have imagined.

Elizabeth Ruth's second novel is a tour de force: a potent, richly inventive story of identity and transformation, of reconciliation between the way you are seen, and the truth of who you really are.

Check out Elizabeth Ruth's website here.

View the Book Discussion Guide here.

Read and add your comments on the One Book, One Community blog here.

Find out about upcoming Author visits here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. (August 2007)

2007-07-10T14:23:00.000-04:00

When Marie-Josephe-Rose Tascher was a girl in Martinique, a voodoo priestess predicted that she would be unhappily married, would then be widowed, and would become queen. With the profits from her father's sugar plantation spent largely on his gambling and drinking, the final prediction seems unlikely. An arranged marriage takes Rose to France, where she finds herself woefully uneducated and unprepared for high society. But in 1779 no one is prepared for the bloody upheaval that will convulse France for years. Rose endures her husband's infidelity and abandonment before his execution leaves her a widow. Combining charm, intelligence, empathy, and luck, she copes with poverty and prison, surviving the revolution with her children. Gulland skillfully re-creates the era's turbulence without confusing readers. A chronology and genealogy provide assistance, and Rose is a character worth caring about and remembering. Her marriage to Napoleon ends this first volume in a projected trilogy, leaving readers eager to know the rest of her story. (from Library Journal)

Josephine de Beauharnais on Wikipedia click here.

Sandra Gulland's homepage click here.

To place a hold on a WPL copy of Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. click here.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (July 2007)

2007-06-14T09:52:00.000-04:00

Into Thin Air is a riveting first-hand account of a catastrophic expedition up Mount Everest. In March 1996, Outside magazine sent veteran journalist and seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall and the other leaders, by the end of summit day eight people were dead. Krakauer's book is at once the story of the ill-fated adventure and an analysis of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the events it chronicles, Into Thin Air clearly evokes the majestic Everest landscape. As the journey up the mountain progresses, Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The author's own anguish over what happened on the mountain is palpable as he leads readers to ponder timeless questions. (Amazon.com)

Discussion questions (from the Manitowoc Public Library) are here.

Read an author biography here.

Suggestions for further reading (Spark Notes) are here.

Mount Everest (National Geographic)

If you liked Into Thin Air (and want to read more about mountaineering) click here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Muriella Pent by Russell Smith (June 11th Book Club title)

2007-05-14T13:45:00.000-04:00

Muriella Pent is Russell Smith's first full-length novel since the critically acclaimed Noise. This post-colonial comedy is the story of what happens when Caribbean writer Marcus Royston, a worldly, Oxford-educated, jaded writer from the island of Saint Andrew's finds himself sent to Canada on a cultural exchange, and lodged in the sprawling art nouveau mansion of middle-aged socialite Muriella Pent.

Royston's motivations are self-advancing, and both find themselves pawns of the politically motivated arts committee behind the exchange program. When two young university students—a boy and a girl who hate each other—are drawn into Royston's fractious orbit, a decidedly unpleasant sexual competition occurs, and life in the leafy enclave of Stilwoode Park becomes more artistic than any of the exchange's sponsors had ever hoped.

At times funny, melancholy, and sexually depraved, Muriella Pent is told through a collage of dialogue, letters, newspaper articles, and diary entries. It is an unnerving satire about age and youth, desire and privilege, and about warring definitions of art among people from different parts of the former British Empire.
[see http://www.toronto.ca/book_awards/2005/muriella_pent.htm]

Muriella Pent Reader's Guide (BookClubs.ca)
Muriella Pent book review (Quill & Quire)
Russell Smith (Wikipedia)
Place a hold on a WPL copy of Muriella Pent here.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (May 14, 2007)

2007-05-04T10:09:00.000-04:00

In the vice president's mansion in an unnamed South American country, a lavish party is taking place to celebrate the birthday of a visiting Japanese businessman. An American opera singer is entertaining the guests, dignitaries and high-ranking officials from around the world, when suddenly the room is plunged into darkness. Terrorists invade the mansion and set in motion a series of events that irrevocably alters the life of every person involved.

For Mr. Hosokawa, the Japanese businessman in whose honor the party is thrown, the time in captivity is rife with paradox. He never had any intention of doing business with the host country and so feels guilty for having accepted the invitation under false pretenses -- solely to meet Roxane Coss. His feelings of guilt however give way to an undeniable happiness. He is held against his will, and yet under no other circumstances would he have become acquainted with the renowned opera singer who has long captivated him.

The only woman not released by the terrorists, Roxane Coss is the central figure in the story. As much as Gen, Mr. Hosokawa's translator and a gifted linguist, makes it possible to overcome the language barriers, it is Roxane's exquisite voice that bridges the chasm between the hostages and the terrorists.

Every person in the house, regardless of their knowledge and understanding of opera, recognizes the sheer splendor of Roxane's singing and understands that they, in the midst of this terrifying situation, are witness to an awe-inspiring talent. Her singing and the practice routine she devises allow her to maintain a hold on her previous life -- and, by extension, her fellow hostages are able to do so as well. Her singing is their only link to the world they have left behind, and because of this the power that Roxanne holds is greater than that of the gun-wielding terrorists.
Just as the hostages have no contact with the outside world, the narrative keeps the reader focused on the events taking place inside the mansion. As time passes, the boundaries between hostage and terrorist begin to blur. Friendships are formed; passions flare, and mutual interests and talents are discovered. As the days become weeks and the weeks flow into months, an uneasy rhythm marks the time spent in captivity as the world is reduced to the four walls of the Vice President's mansion.

Much the same as an opera takes the listener through various stages of emotions; Bel Canto delivers the same impact for the reader. The beauty of the music is always present -- "soon enough the days were divided into three states: the anticipation of her singing, the pleasure of her singing, and the reflection of her singing" -- in stark contrast to the harsh reality of the situation. Mesmerizing with its lyrical prose, Bel Canto builds to an unexpected and poignant crescendo that resonates with emotion.

Author Biography (ReadingGroupGuides.com)
Discussion Questions (ReadingGroupGuides.com)
Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham (March 2007)

2007-03-12T18:09:00.000-04:00

A young man struggling for self-realization is caught up in a destructive love affair.

W. Somerset Maugham (Wikipedia)

W. Somerset Maugham (IPL - Online Literary Criticism Collection)

Of Human Bondage - Reading Guide (Penguin Group)

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens (February 2007)

2007-02-15T17:51:00.000-05:00

When she volunteers to take in five-year-old Sharla Cody for the summer, eighty-year-old Addy Shadd forms a powerful bond with Sharla that prompts her to recollect her own childhood in Rusholme, a town settled by fugitive slaves in the mid-1800s.

Read about the author here.

Read reviews of the book here.

Read book discussion questions (from Random House) here.

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (January 2007)

2006-12-27T15:14:00.000-05:00

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.

Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is. (from www.bookclubs.ca)

Biography of Kazuo Ishiguro (from the British Council of Arts)

Discussion Questions (BookBrowse)

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

NOTE: the book club meeting will be held on Monday, January 8, 2007 at 7 p.m. in the Boardroom at the Waterloo Public Library

2007 WPL Book Club selections

2006-12-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

During October's Book Club meeting, everyone had the opportunity to suggest a title to be included on next year's WPL Book Club reading list. Those titles are:

January - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
February - Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens
March - Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
April - WPL joint-book club meeting – title to be announced
May – Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
June - Muriella Pent by Russell Smith
July - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
August - The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland
September - OBOC book – title to be announced (in April)
October - By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
November - Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
December - As For Me and My House by Sinclair Ross

If you are interested in discussing any of these books with the Book Club - please feel free to join us. You can attend all the meetings or just one! Please contact Christine Brown at 519-886-1310 ext. 146 for further details.

Fearsome Particles by Trevor Cole (December 2006)

2006-12-10T18:47:00.000-05:00

Note: This is a joint KPL-WPL Book Club meeting being hosted by KPL at KPL on Queen Street in Kitchener on Saturday, December 9th at 10 a.m.

Gerald Woodlore, a window screen executive, wakes one morning to find, to his utter dismay, that he has reached the limits of what he can control. The company he works for is rapidly losing market share and a junior assistant seems to be the only one with an idea how to fix it. His wife, Vicki, a luxury real-estate dresser, appears to be bending under the pressures of constructing an image of perfect happiness both at work and at home. But most worrying of all is Gerald and Vicki’s twenty-year-old son, Kyle, who quit school to volunteer with the military’s civilian support staff in Afghanistan. Now he has returned early and retreated to his room in the wake of a mysterious and traumatic event. [www.bookclubs.ca]

Trevor Cole's website

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here

Book Lover's Trivia

2006-12-08T12:50:00.000-05:00

This isn't a game for the easily discouraged - many of the questions can be difficult and just plain frustrating to answer. I answered the first two questions correctly. How many questions can you answer?

Friday's Book Lover's Trivia (card #306):

CH - What famed Manhattan museum do Claudia and Jamie make their home-away-from-home in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?
CL - What 1961 novel was populated by generals named Dreedle, Peckem and Scheisskopf?
NF - What city's 1893 World's Fair and the serial killer who stalked it were dissected in Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City?
BC - What T.C. Boyle tale of a California commune was named for a real-life commune in Colorado?
AU - What heavyweight children's author told the magazine Fat! So?: "I get a certain glee in putting fat people in what amount to heroic settings"?
BB - What inventive Mississippi wit envisions a woman raped by a walrus in The Tennis Handsome?

Answers:
CH - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
CL - Catch-22
NF - Chicago's
BC - Drop City
AU - Daniel Pinkwater
BB - Barry Hannah

The Ash Garden by Dennis Bock (November 2006)

2006-11-13T22:18:00.000-05:00

This story traces the intersections among the lives of three very different people, linked forever by the atom bomb, the Destroyer of Worlds, the dream that became a nightmare.

Emiko Amai, a six-year-old Japanese girl orphaned and disfigured in the bombing of Hiroshima, is now a well-known and respected documentary filmmaker. Though American doctors helped erase the shadows from her face, they cannot erase the deeper scars on her soul.

Anton Böll, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, was a member of the Manhattan Project and a scientific observer in Japan three weeks after the bomb was dropped. Living now with his ailing wife in a peaceful Ontario town, he has attended memorials for fifty years to explain that, "These were hard decisions, made by studious and good men mindful of their responsibilities to mankind. Yes, in a perfect world it could have been otherwise, only in a perfect world …"

Sophie Böll, a half-Jewish Austrian refugee, was alone and friendless in a Canadian detention camp until she met Anton, the man with whom she would spend her life. Now, despite suffering from acute lupus, Sophie still manages to find the strength to support her husband.

With these three characters, Dennis Bock transforms a familiar story—the atom bomb as a means to end worldwide slaughter—into something witnessed, as if for the first time, in all its beauty and terrible power. The Ash Garden travels from the dawning of the modern age that August day over fifty years ago, to the present, where the far-reaching consequences of our actions still echo. Exploring on an intimate scale the repercussions of mankind’s most pivotal moment, The Ash Garden is an astonishing triumph. [Harper Collins Canada]

Reader's Guide

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

A Blade of Grass by Lewis DeSoto (October 2006)

2006-10-24T10:05:00.000-04:00

PLEASE NOTE: The Book Club will be meeting this month on Monday, October 23rd in the Boardroom at WPL.
Set on Kudufontein, a remote farm on the border between South Africa and an unnamed country in the 1970s, A Blade of Grass is a charged and complex exploration of apartheid and its consequences. The story centers on Märit Laurens, a young woman of British descent, orphaned and recently married to Ben, whom she joins to live on their newly purchased farm. Not long after their arrival, violence strikes at the heart of Märit's world, leaving her alone and isolated. Devastated, alone, but determined to keep the farm running, Märit turns for companionship and guidance to her young black housekeeper, Tembi, who is in a similar predicament but for different reasons.Soon Märit finds herself in the middle of a simmering battle between the local Afrikaner community that surrounds her farm and the black workers who live on it, with both vying for control over her land in the wake of tragedy. Facing obstacles of biblical proportions, Tembi and Märit forge a close bond, relying on each other, what's left of their land, and their wits to survive.Strangers and wanderers insinuate themselves into their sheltered world, including Michael, the mute musician who charms their farmyard animals, and Khoza, a mysterious, sinister figure who upsets the tenuous peace and security Tembi and Märit have found in each other. Perhaps the greatest threat to their world is the encroaching civil war and its soldiers who stir up conflicting loyalties that turn Märit and Tembi's fight for the farm into a struggle for their lives. [HarperCollins]

Reading Guide

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

South Africa (Wikipedia)

CIA World Factbook - South Africa

Friday Book Lover's Trivia

2006-10-20T09:58:00.000-04:00

Trivial Pursuit book lover's edition (card #257)

Questions:

CH - What school in Louis Sachar stories was supposed to be one story high, with 30 side-by-side classrooms, but ended up 30 stories tall instead?

CL - What novel did Virginia Woolf base on her androgynous lover Vita Sackville-West?

NF - What architectural activist helped change the face of urban planning with her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities?

BC - What sequel helped vault its predecessor Little Altars Everywhere onto bestseller lists?

AU - What writer sued Fox Searchlight for dumping a film based on her Teena Brandon book All She Wanted when they discovered Boys Don't Cry?

BB - What crime writer brought Detective Sergeant Stone Barrington to life in New York Dead?

Answers:

CH - The Wayside School

CL - Orlando

NF - Jane Jacobs

BC - Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

AU - Aphrodite Jones

BB - Stuart Woods

Book Lover's Trivia

2006-09-29T07:28:00.000-04:00

Today's questions (Card #111)

CH - What foul-smelling William Steig character was obligated to leave the "black hole in which he'd been hatched," when his parents "kicked him goodbye"?

CL - What Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is peppered with characters like Pork, Miss Pittypat and Prissy?

NF - What historic passageway did David McCullough chronicle in The Path Between the Seas?

BC - What nation's historic persecution of Haitian laborers is the focus of Edwidge Danticat's novel The Farming of Bones?

AU - What prolific novelist did Entertainment Weekly talk into writing a regular pop culture column, in 2003?

BB - What island does Terry McMillan's Stella visit to "get her groove back"?

Answers:

CH - Shrek

CL - Gone with the Wind

NF - The Panama Canal

BC - The Dominican Republic's

AU - Stephen King

BB - Jamaica

Ahh . . . I did really well until the question about Entertainment Weekly. I kept thinking about Dominick Dunne although I know he doesn't write for Entertainment Weekly. Sigh. Of course, Stephen King. How did you do?

Friday's Book Lover's Trivia

2006-09-22T10:57:00.000-04:00

From Trivial Pursuit book lover's edition (card #34). I was excited when I read the questions because the questions seemed liked things I should know. And, I did know, 3/6 answers.

Questions:

CH - What was the best-selling hardcover children's book ever, by 2001 - Green Eggs and Ham, Pat the Bunny or The Pokey Little Puppy?
CL - What novel spins the tale of the four March sisters?
NF - What rocker's famous excesses did Sandy Troy detail in his 1994 biography Captain Trips?
BC - What Margaret Drabble novel centers on a feminist author who turns up missing from her British seaside town?
AU - What Nobel Prize-winner no doubt pleased typesetters by abbreviating his first two names, Vidiadhar Surajprassad?
BB - What hard-boiled private investigator dates a feminist therapist named Susan Silverman?

Answers:
CH - The Pokey Little Puppy
CL - Little Women
NF - Jerry Garcia's
BC - The Witch of Exmoor
AU - V.S. Naipaul
BB - Spenser

How did you do?

Lunch with Joseph Boyden (2)

2006-09-21T13:42:00.000-04:00

Lunch with Joseph Boyden (2)
Originally uploaded by waterloopubliclibrary.

Joseph Boyden

2006-09-21T13:37:00.000-04:00

Joseph Boyden
Originally uploaded by waterloopubliclibrary.

On Wednesday, September 20th, Joseph Boyden stopped in at the Waterloo Public Library to enjoy lunch, autograph some copies of his book and meet some fans - including several members of the WPL Book Club.

What a great treat it was!

One Book, One Community - Waterloo Region 2006

2006-09-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

Over the past few months there have been events and discussions throughout Waterloo Region relating to the One Book, One Community title Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. This week (Sept 18 - 23) is the final week of OBOC.

On Tuesday, Sept 19th, you can meet Joseph Boyden at the Waterloo Community Arts Centre-Button Factory and participate in a discussion about his book. Read all about it here.

Also, OBOC this year introduced a blog to keep people updated and informed about events happening throughout the Region. You can check out the blog here.

If you haven't had a chance to read the book and would like to, you can check the availability of Three Day Road on the library's catalogue.

Hope to see you there!

Book Lover's Trivia

2006-09-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

If you love trivia and books then you are sure to love Trivial Pursuit book lover's edition. The questions are challenging but fun. There are six categories of questions: Children's Literature, Classic Literature, Non Fiction Literature, Book Club, Author, Book Bag. I'm going to try ending each week with some book lover's trivia. Test your skill (or luck) here. (card #93)

CH - What kind of creature is the grouchy Templeton, in Charlotte's Web?

CL - What was Jane Austen's novel Susan retitled when it was first printed, decases after she'd written it?

NF - What corporation's 2001 downfall does Fortune reporter Bethany McLean expose, in The Smartest Guys in the Room?

BC - What author of The Transit of Venus forced fans to wait 23 years for her next novel, The Great Fire?

AU - What Novel-winning U.S. novelist wrote in the 1950s, about raising a mentally handicapped daughter, in The Child Who Never Grew?

BB - What mystery author's stable of sleuths includes museum curator Elena Oliverez and art investigator Joanna Stark?

Answers:

CH - A rat

CL - Northanger Abbey

NF - Enron's

BC - Shirley Hazzard

AU - Pearl Buck

BB - Marcia Muller's

How did you do? My score was embarrasing given my love of books and the fact that I spend every day in a library.

Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley (Monday, September 11, 2006)

2006-08-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

Published in 1984, Not Wanted on the Voyage is one of Timothy Findley's most imaginative and compelling literary fictions. Findley turns to one of our essential myths: the biblical story of the great Flood, but he doesn't so much retell it as take our common knowledge of the Old Testament tale and give it an extraordinary twist. Here we have Dr. Noah Noyes, diabolical conjuror and dictatorial leader of his helpless little boat-bound band, sure of his total superiority as man, husband, and father, imposing his view of the ways of God on his wife and family. The kind and generous Mrs. Noyes stands in direct contrast to her hard-hearted husband, and then there are the Noyes children: strongman Japeth, every inch his father's son, with his delicate wife, Emma; and the sensitive Ham, every inch his mother's, with his mysterious wife, Lucy (a.k.a. Lucifer, who, having escaped from Hell, has decided to align himself with mankind). Findley, a great lover of cats, also gives us the crotchety Mottyl, making his way through his ninth and final life. Not Wanted on the Voyage is poetic and passionate and bursting with a wide-eyed inventiveness, at once a stunningly contemporary attempt at mythmaking, a grand novel of the power of the imagination, and a thoroughly good read. --Jeffrey Canton

Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here.

Northwest Passages - Timothy Findley

Timothy Findley biography

Book Club Meeting for Three Day Road on August 14, 2006

2006-08-08T15:23:00.000-04:00

On Monday, August 14th the WPL Book Club will be hosting a Book Club meeting to discuss the book Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. In recognition of this book as the One Book, One Community selection, we have invited the Kitchener Public Library and the book club from the Cambridge Public Library to attend. Of course, any members of the public are also welcome to attend.

Refreshments will be served.

In order to have a successful book club meeting, I am requesting that people register in advance if they plan on attending the Book Club meeting. By limiting registration to 35 - 40 people, we can ensure that the group size is manageable and everyone can have a chance to participate. If you do plan on attending, please e-mail me to let me know. My e-mail address is cbrown@wpl.ca

Why there's no beer at the book club (Globe & Mail)

2006-08-08T11:48:00.000-04:00

An article in the Globe & Mail called Why there's no beer at the book club was waiting for me at my desk this morning.

From the article:

"Women read more, they read more novels, they read earlier and they read later. Sixty-five to 70 % of the [Canadian] book market is women." observes Brad Martin, president of Random House of Canada, adding that the American and European markets are probably similar. "How many men do you know who are in a book group?"

As a member of a Book Club I can attest to the fact that women outnumber men in membership. We've had a few men attend the book club over the years and we've welcomed their input and feedback. I've never really given much thought to why there are so few males in the book club. I suppose I've always just assumed that discussing books wasn't a regular guy thing. If that is true, what can we be doing to change it.

Working in a public library I see alot of male fiction readers. What are they reading? W.E.B. Griffin, Nelson DeMille, Jonathan Kellerman, Robert Ludlum, Michael Crichton, Jeffrey Deaver, James Patterson, John Updike, David Baldacci, John Grisham, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Terry Goodkind, Dan Brown, Mitch Albom and those are just the names that sprang to mind.

Recommending a book or author you've enjoyed is one way of generating interest in fiction for males (and females). A little hype geared to the male reader could do a world of good.

Over the years the WPL Book Club has read titles that are appealing to all kinds of readers. A fantastic example of this was in July when the Book Club read Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spegelman. This isn't normally a format that I would read and I lived in dread all year of reading this graphic novel. I finally read it and that it was amazingly well-written and well-suited to the format. What I'm saying is, I tried something new and it didn't kill me.

I'm sure there are lots of men out there who can be adventurous. Come one, read a new (fiction) author and check out the Book Club.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman (July 2006)

2006-06-16T13:21:00.000-04:00

Acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust " (The Wall Street Journal). The first volume introduces readers to Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father's terrifying story, and history itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us out of any lingering sense of familiarity with the events described, approaching, as it does, the unspeakable through the diminutive. Tragic and comic by turns, it attains a new complexity of theme and a precision of thought new to comics and rare in any medium. The two volumes tie together two powerful stories: Vladek's harrowing tale of survival against all odds, delineating the paradox of daily life in the death camps, and the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. [Random House]

Interview with Art Spiegelman (BookSense.com)

Art Spiegelman's MAUS: Working Through the Trauma of the Holocaust

Maus (Wikipedia)

Librarian's Book Club blog gets international attention

2006-06-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

From the Kitchener-Waterloo Record (June 6, 2006):

Librarian's book-club blog gets international attention
Computer-savvy fans can find trivia tidbits or literary discussions on library site
PHILIP JALSEVAC

Waterloo librarian Christine Brown draws inspiration from a variety of sources for her online book club blog. The blog has been picked up by the American Library Association as part of a course on Internet technologies.

Do you know what a washing machine, hot air furnace, privy seat and moustache adjuster all have in common? Probably not. But then you're likely missing out on Christine Brown's blog, an online publishing tool that offers a huge array of information, including hyperlinks related to "cool websites."

A librarian at the Waterloo Public Library, Brown notes that the above devices were invented in Waterloo and registered in the first 25 years of Canada's Patent Office from 1869 to 1894.As for the moustache adjuster, that's a comblike thingamajig "that raises the moustache from over the lips so that a person can eat/drink without having the lower part of the moustache get wet," Brown writes in her blog. "My guess is that this particular invention didn't do so well."

Another blog entry is a quiz that asks: "What was the title of Thomas Keneally's novel on which Steven Spielberg based his film Schindler's List?" The answer is Schindler's Ark.

Brown's blog, which has been picked up by the American Library Association as part of a course it offers on Internet technologies, is dedicated partly to "the ongoing quest for finding information in a newer, better, faster way."

The blog can be found on the library's website at http://mail.wpl.ca/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.wpl.ca under the heading WPL Book Club Blog. That link takes visitors to a page where they can click on About Me to access the blog, called WPL Infostuff, or another one by Brown about the club. That has entries about books discussed at monthly meetings of the club, which she co-ordinates, and allows those who can't attend to post comments and participate via cyberspace.

As an example, regarding the book A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, a visitor by the name of Vanessa wrote: "Don't often like the movie better than the book but I think in this case it is true. I didn't find the book to be a particularly easy read . . ."A small number of people have been submitting comments since the blog started last January, but Brown notes the blog had 364 "hits" last month." Sometimes it takes a little longer for people to get used to new technology," she said. "But the statistics show people are looking at it. Whether they start commenting or not, I would say it's a success and it can only get better."

As for visitors to her Infostuff blog, which began late last year, there were more than 700 in May. "I have people from all over the world looking at these blogs. I have people from the Philippines and Taiwan. "I get links from the U.K., from across Canada and all over the States."For the book club blog, Brown occasionally writes a description of the book but usually picks up something from one of many "reading guides" on the Internet. "The one I like the best, that's the one I post. And if I find something else interesting, I'll post that as well," Brown said.That can include things like links to the author's website and book excerpts.

As for the Infostuff blog, she writes virtually all the text for its broader variety of topics.Brown, who has a master's degree in library and information science but is self-taught in computer literacy, draws her inspiration from a wide variety of sources."I read other blogs. I'm always checking out new websites and read newspapers online to find out what's going on. I read the professional literature like Computers in Libraries and Library Journal. I always check major database providers. "Every day, there's something new." And she says her greatest satisfaction is sharing the bounty of her information harvest with others. "That's why I started the blog, because I had so much stuff I was excited about."pjalsevac@therecord.com

Russlander by Sandra Birdsell (June 2006)

2006-05-10T17:06:00.000-04:00

Katherine (Katya) Vogt is now an old woman living in Winnipeg, but the story of how she and her family came to Canada begins in Russia in 1910, on a wealthy Mennonite estate. Here they lived in a world bounded by the prosperity of their landlords and by the poverty and disgruntlement of the Russian workers who toil on the estate. But in the wake of the First World War, the tensions engulfing the country begin to intrude on the community, leading to an unspeakable act of violence. In the aftermath of that violence, and in the difficult years that follow, Katya tries to come to terms with the terrible events that befell her and her family. In lucid, spellbinding prose, Birdsell vividly evokes time and place, and the unease that existed in a county on the brink of revolutionary change. The Russländer is a powerful and moving story of ordinary people who lived through extraordinary times. [bookclubs.ca]

Reading Guide

One Book, One Community 2006 - title announced

2006-04-27T14:24:00.000-04:00

The One Book, One Community book title was announced today. The book is Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. It is the story of two Cree Indians who, during WWI, become snipers in the battlefields of Europe and their journey through the war and back to northern Ontario. Only one of them returns. The book is inspired by the real-life World War I Ojibwa hero Francis Pegahmaqabow. Despite the troubling subject of the book, Boyden's writing flows easily. I'm about mid-way through the book and can't put it down.If you are interested in learning more about Native Canadians who have fought in the war(s) you could check out these wonderful sources:

About the Book
Reading Guide and Interview with Joseph Boyden

Online Sources
Native Soldiers - Foreign Battlefields
"Throughout the war, the Department of Indian Affairs received scores of letters from the front commending Native marksmen and scouts. As well, at least 50 decorations were awarded to Canadian Natives for their bravery while sniping and scouting and for performing other feats of valour during the war."

Native Canadians and the War (Library and Archives Canada)"During the First World War, the official policy of the Dominion Government stated that Native Canadians should not participate in the conflict. Despite the official policy, over 3,500 Indians enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Ontario’s Aboriginal Veterans (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada)Canada´s Aboriginal people have a proud history of defending our society and our shared principles.

Canadian Virtual War Memorial
This site contains a registry of information about the graves and memorials of more than 116,000 Canadians who served valiantly and gave their lives for their country. Under the Records & Collections link you can also listen to songs popular during the First World War, view the digitized versions of the Books of Remembrance, learn about Canadian orders, medals and decorations, view war art and remembrance day posters and read wartime poetry from veterans

Saturday by Ian McEwan (May 2006)

2006-04-19T18:44:00.000-04:00

A masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man — a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before.On this particular Saturday morning, Perowne’s day moves through the ordinary to the extraordinary. After an unusual sighting in the early morning sky, he makes his way to his regular squash game with his anaesthetist, trying to avoid the hundreds of thousands of marchers filling the streets of London, protesting against the war. A minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with a small-time thug. To Perowne’s professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man, who in turn believes the surgeon has humiliated him — with savage consequences that will lead Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive. (www.bookclubs.ca)

Reader's Guide
Ian McEwan's website

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (April 2006)

2006-03-26T14:52:00.000-05:00

What really happened in the Marabar caves? This is the mystery at the heart of E.M. Forster's 1924 novel, A Passage to India, the puzzle that sets in motion events highlighting an even larger question: Can an Englishman and an Indian be friends?

"It is impossible here," an Indian character tells his friend, Dr. Aziz, early in the novel.

"They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do.... Why, I remember when Turton came out first. It was in another part of the Province. You fellows will not believe me, but I have driven with Turton in his
carriage--Turton! Oh yes, we were once quite intimate. He has shown me his stamp
collection. "He would expect you to steal it now. Turton! But red-nosed boy
will be far worse than Turton!

"I do not think so. They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give any Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. It is only the difference of a letter. And I give any Englishwoman six months. All are exactly alike."

Written while England was still firmly in control of India, Forster's novel follows the fortunes of three English newcomers to India--Miss Adela Quested, Mrs. Moore, and Cyril Fielding--and the Indian, Dr. Aziz, with whom they cross destinies. The idea of true friendship between the races was a radical one in Forster's time, and he makes it abundantly clear that it was not one that either side welcomed. If Aziz's friend, Hamidullah, believed it impossible, the British representatives of the Raj were equally discouraging.

"Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar.
"How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but crooked smile.
"He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps."

Despite their countrymen's disapproval, Miss Quested, Mrs. Moore, and Mr. Fielding are all eager to meet Indians, and in Dr. Aziz they find a perfect companion: educated, westernized, and open-minded. Slowly, the friendships ripen, especially between Aziz and Fielding. Having created the possibility of esteem based on trust and mutual affection, Forster then subjects it to the crucible of racial hatred: during a visit to the famed Marabar caves, Miss Quested accuses Dr. Aziz of sexually assaulting her, then later recants during the frenzied trial that follows. Under such circumstances, affection proves to be a very fragile commodity indeed.
Arguably Forster's greatest novel, A Passage to India limns a troubling portrait of colonialism at its worst, and is remarkable for the complexity of its characters. Here the personal becomes the political and in the breach between Aziz and his English "friends," Forster foreshadows the eventual end of the Raj. Amazon.com --Alix Wilber

Reader's Guide

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (February 2006)

2006-01-21T23:19:00.000-05:00

THE RED TENT tells the little-known Biblical story of Dinah, daughter of the patriarch Jacob and his wife, Leah. In Chapter 34 of the Book of Genesis, Dinah’s tale is a short, horrific detour in the familiar narrative of Jacob and Joseph.Anita Diamant imaginatively tells the story from the fresh perspective of its women. In the Biblical tale Dinah is given no voice; she is the narrator of THE RED TENT, which reveals the life of ancient womanhood -- the world of the red tent.

Reader's Guide

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan (March 2006)

2006-01-21T23:08:00.000-05:00

For six months in 1919, after the end of “the war to end all wars,” the Big Three—President Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister David Lloyd George, and French premier Georges Clemenceau—met in Paris to shape a lasting peace. In this landmark work of narrative history, Margaret MacMillan gives a dramatic and intimate view of those fateful days, which saw new political entities—Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Palestine, among them—born out of the ruins of bankrupt empires, and the borders of the modern world redrawn. [bookclubs.ca]

Reader's Guide

The Little Immigrants: The Orphans That Came to Canada by Kenneth Bagnell

2006-01-15T14:01:00.000-05:00

The Little Immigrants is a tale of compassion and courage and a vivid account of a deep and moving part of Canadian heritage. In the early years after Confederation, the rising nation needed workers that could take advantage of the abundant resources. Until the time of the Depression, 100,000 impoverished children from the British Isles were sent overseas by well-meaning philanthropists to solve the colony's farm-labour shortage. They were known as the "home children," and they were lonely and frightened youngsters to whom a new life in Canada meant only hardship and abuse.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

2006-01-15T13:45:00.000-05:00

Set in the American South in 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act and intensifying racial unrest, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees is a powerful story of coming-of-age, of the ability of love to transform our lives, and the often unacknowledged longing for the universal feminine divine. Addressing the wounds of loss, betrayal, and the scarcity of love, Kidd demonstrates the power of women coming together to heal those wounds, to mother each other and themselves, and to create a sanctuary of true family and home.Isolated on a South Carolina peach farm with a neglectful and harsh father, fourteen-year-old Lily Owens has spent much of her life longing for her mother, Deborah, who died amid mysterious circumstances when Lily was four years old. To make matters worse, her father, T. Ray, tells Lily that she accidentally killed her mother.

Lily is raised by Rosaleen, her proud and outspoken African-American nanny. When Rosaleen attempts to exercise her newly won right to vote, she is attacked by the three worst racists in town and is thrown into jail. Lily is determined to save Rosaleen and finally escape her own father as well. Seizing the moment, she springs Rosaleen from jail, and the two set out across South Carolina in search of a new life.Their destination is Tiburon, South Carolina—a town they know nothing about except that in a box of Lily's mother's belongings there is a cryptic picture of a black Virgin Mary with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" written on the back. There they are taken in by three black beekeeping sisters who worship the Black Madonna. It is here, surrounded by the strength of the Madonna, the hum of bees, and a circle of wise and colorful women, that Lily makes her passage to wholeness and a new life. [Courtesy of Penguin Books]

Reader's Group Guide

Dirt Music by Tim Winton

2006-01-15T13:43:00.000-05:00

The stunning new narrative by Australian writer Winton (The Riders, nominated for the Booker), a tale of three characters' perilous journey into the Australian wilderness in efforts to escape and atone for their pasts, may just be his breakthrough American publication. At 40, Georgie Jutland, former nurse, inveterate risk-taker, incipient alcoholic and lifelong rebel against her prominent family, has moved in with widowed lobster fisherman Jim Buckridge, "the uncrowned prince" of the western seaside community of White Point. Although Georgie devotes herself to Jim's two young sons, their relationship is uneasy and somehow empty. When she's drawn to shamateur (fish poacher) Luther Fox, who breaks the law to keep his mind from tragic memories, the lives of all three begin to unravel. Lu, the lone survivor of a disreputable family of musicians who specialized in dirt music (country blues), is a memorable character, vulnerable and appealing despite his many flaws. When the White Point community resorts to violence against him, he heads into the tropic wilderness of Australia's northern coast, and the plot begins to challenge CBS's Survivor. With masterly economy and control, Winton unfurls a story of secrets, regrets and new beginnings. His prose, sprinkled with regional vernacular, combines cool dispassion and lyric concision. Geography and landscape are palpable elements: as the narrative progresses, the atmosphere shifts from the austere monotony of a seacoast battered by wind into spectacular gorge country, the bare desolation of the desert and the terrible heat of the tropics. But it's each character's inner landscape that Winton authoritatively traverses with his unerring map of the heart. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. [Publishers Weekly]

First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women by Eric McCormack

2006-01-15T13:35:00.000-05:00

This is the story of Andrew Halfnight, whose life—part dream, part nightmare— begins with a mother’s tragic choice and ends with a lover’s understanding. In between he experiences tempests at sea, relatives who kill for love, and lovers who sacrifice their bodies, all the while unknowingly moving ever closer to the central mystery of his, and all existence.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

2006-01-15T13:33:00.000-05:00

It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby's narrator is an early-thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way--on vinyl--and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music. Amazon.com

The Romantic by Barbara Gowdy

2006-01-15T13:30:00.000-05:00

Louise Kirk learns about love and loss at an early age. When she is nine years old, her former beauty queen mother disappears, leaving a note that reads only -- and incorrectly -- "Louise knows how to work the washing machine." Soon after, the Richters and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louise's immediate devotion to the exotic, motherly Mrs. Richter is quickly transferred to her nature-loving, precociously intelligent son.

Reader's Guide

A Day Late and a Dollar Short by Terry McMillan

2006-01-15T13:26:00.000-05:00

As the book begins, Viola is in the hospital recovering from a devastating asthma attack, and she's decided to turn her life around, even if it means causing her large, unruly clan a little discomfort. Lewis, Viola's only son, is a drifter, handicapped both by his genius IQ and his alcoholism. Janelle, the youngest child, is perpetually searching for the perfect career, while ignoring signs that her 12-year-old daughter is in trouble. Viola's relationship with her perpetually angry middle daughter, Charlotte, is so volatile that Charlotte periodically hangs up in the middle of phone conversations, while Paris, Viola's eldest, appears to be brilliantly successful, but is actually desperately lonely and has developed a dependency on pills to maintain her superwoman act. To add to the confusion, Cecil, Viola's husband of 40 years, has moved in with his girlfriend, Brenda, a welfare mother pregnant with a child that may or may not be his. The story of how the family puts it back together is told from the perspective of all six main characters, and McMillan moves easily and skillfully from voice to voice. (Amazon.com)
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Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

2006-01-15T13:21:00.000-05:00

Set against the wild terrain of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape, this universal drama of love and misunderstanding recounts a family' tragic and moving past. Poignant, funny, and utterly unforgettable, Crow Lake is a deceptively simple masterpiece of literary fiction.Orphaned young, Kate Morrison and her siblings were bound together by loss. None of them could have expected the tumultuous times ahead—least of all Kate' older brothers, Matt and Luke. Twenty years later, the sacrifices they made and the promises they broke would continue to reverberate through their lives and the quiet rural community of Crow Lake. [Courtesy of Delta Trade Paperback, ReadingGroupGuide.com]

Reader's Guide - Random House

Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier

2006-01-15T13:16:00.000-05:00

In mid-career, the renowned 17th century Baroque artist Johannes Vermeer painted "Girl with a Pearl Earring," which has been called the Dutch Mona Lisa. Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the story behind the advent of this famous painting, all the while depicting life in 17th century Delft, a small Dutch city with a burgeoning art community.

The novel centers on Griet, the Protestant daughter of a Delft tile painter who lost his sight in a kiln accident. In order to bring income to her struggling family, Griet must work as a maid for a more financially sound family. When Jan Vermeer and his wife approve of Griet as a maid for their growing Catholic household, she leaves home and quickly enters adult life. The Vermeer household, with its five children, grandmother and long-time servant, is ready to make Griet's working life difficult. Though her help is sorely needed, her beauty and innocence are both coveted and resented. Vermeer's wife Catharina, long banished from her husband's studio for her clumsiness and lack of genuine interest in art, is immediately wary of Griet, a visually talented girl who exhibits signs of artistic promise. Taneke, the faithful servant to the grandmother, proves her protective loyalty by keeping a close eye on Griet's every move.The artist himself, however, holds another view entirely of the young maid. Recognizing Griet's talents, Vermeer takes her on as his studio assistant and surreptitiously teaches her to grind paints and develop color palettes in the remote attic. Though reluctant to overstep her boundaries in the cagey Vermeer household, Griet is overjoyed both to work with her intriguing master and to lend some breath to her natural inclinations—colors and composition—neither of which she had ever been able to develop. Together, Vermeer and Griet conceal the apprenticeship from the family until Vermeer's most prominent patron demands that the lovely maid be the subject of his next commissioned work. Vermeer must paint Griet—an awkward, charged situation for them both. [Courtesy of Penguin Putnam, Reading Group Guides.com]

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

2006-01-15T13:11:00.000-05:00

This is the powerful story of an independent woman who refuses to abandon her search for love. For Morag Gunn, growing up in a small Canadian prairie town is a toughening process – putting distance between herself and a world that wanted no part of her. But in time, the aloneness that had once been forced upon her becomes a precious right – relinquished only in her overwhelming need for love. Again and again, Morag is forced to test her strength against the world – and finally achieves the life she had determined would be hers.

The Wars by Timothy Findley

2006-01-15T13:09:00.000-05:00

Robert Ross is a sensitive young man from Canada. The nineteen-year-old fights in the First World War, where he is exposed to unbelievable violence, constant death and the insanity of trench warfare. Ross is himself victimized, and he sees many around him die or go mad. Eventually, he is accused of betraying his country. An odd story, almost a myth, circulates about Ross's attempt to save horses at the cost of men during the war. The unravelling of the events suggests that Ross saw that war turned humans into brutes. [ A. Antonow]

Timothy Findley http://www.collectionscanada.ca/3/8/t8-2008-e.html

The Convict Lover by Merilyn Simonds

2006-01-15T12:59:00.000-05:00

In 1987, writer Merilyn Simonds found a cache of letters, albums, clippings and other memorabilia in the attic of her Kingston, Ontario, home, the bits and pieces of an unknown woman’s life. Among the overflowing boxes and stuffed sugar sacks was a tin box that held one complete, brief collection of letters from the months immediately after the First World War in 1919, a one-way correspondence written in pencil on flimsy paper, undated and without postmarks. From this careless jumble of pages, remarkable individuals and events emerged: a convict, a penitentiary, a village girl, a life in small town Canada at the end of the Great War.

Book Club Guide

Open House by Elizabeth Berg

2006-01-15T12:54:00.000-05:00

A woman re-creates her life after divorce by opening up her house and her heart. Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. In order to really see people, she has to look within her heart. And in order to know who she is, she has to remember--and reclaim--the person she used to be, long before she became someone else in an effort to save her marriage. Open House is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself. [Courtesy of Random House, ReadingGroupGuides.com]

Reading Group Guide

Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

2006-01-15T00:08:00.000-05:00

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

Stupid White Men by Michael Moore

2006-01-15T00:05:00.000-05:00

Michael Moore's screed against "Thief-in-Chief" George Bush's power elite, hit No. 1 at Amazon.com within days of publication. Why? It's as fulminating and crammed with infuriating facts as any right-wing bestseller, as irreverent as The Onion, and as noisily entertaining as a wrestling smackdown. Moore offers a more interesting critique of the 2000 election than Ralph Nader's Crashing the Party (he argued with Nader, his old boss, who sacked him), and he's serious when he advocates ousting Bush. But Moore's rage is outrageous, couched in shameless gags and madcap comedy: "Old white men wielding martinis and wearing dickies have occupied our nation's capital.... Launch the SCUD missiles! Bring us the head of Antonin Scalia!... We are no longer [able] to hold free and fair elections. We need U.N. observers, U.N. troops." Moore's ideas range from on-the-money (Arafat should beat Sharon with Gandhi's nonviolent shame tactics) to over-the-top: blacks should put inflatable white dolls in their cars so racist cops will think they're chauffeurs; the ever-more-Republicanesque Democratic Party should be sued for fraud; "no contributions toward advancing our civilization ever came out of the South [except Faulkner, Hellman, and R.J. Reynolds]," because it's too hot to think straight there; Korean dictator Kim Jong-il "has got to broaden himself beyond porn and John Wayne" by watching better movies, like Dude, Where's My Car? (which contains "all you need to know about America"). Whatever your politics, Stupid White Men should make you blow your stack. --Tim Appelo [Amazon.com]

Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston

2006-01-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

From Library Journal

Johnston draws on historical events to build his new novel. A fierce duel was waged during the years 1907-09 between Adm. Robert Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook, each claiming to have been the first to reach the North Pole. Against the backdrop of this dispute, Johnston tells the story of a lonely Newfoundland boy named Devlin Stead who grows up under a shadow because his parents reputedly committed suicide. As Devlin observes, "I could think of no greater thing than to be an explorer, the epitome of my most cherished belief, which was that a man's fate was not determined by the past." In fact, Devlin's fate is much in thrall to the past. The thrill of polar exploration, the beauty and terror of glaciers, and the horror of the long Arctic nights are splendidly evoked. The secrets of Devlin's parents are slowly revealed, adding intrigue and suspense to the last two-thirds of the book. For all collections of serious fiction.Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NYCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Island Walkers by John Bemrose

2006-01-14T23:56:00.000-05:00

This is the story of a family who slips from fortune’s favour in a southwestern Ontario mill town during the mid-1960s. Like his father before him, Alf Walker is a fixer in the local textile mill. When a labour dispute forces him to choose between loyalty to his friends and his own advancement, Alf’s actions inadvertently set in motion a series of events that will reverberate far into the future. Meanwhile, Alf’s wife, Margaret, must reconcile her middle-class upbringing with her blue-collar reality, as her marriage is undermined by forces she cannot name. And after their eldest son, Joe, falls headlong for a girl he first glimpses on a bridge, the boy finds his world overturned by the passion and uncertainty of young love. At once intimate and epic in scope, The Island Walkers follows the Walker family to the very bottom of their night, only to confirm, in the end, life’s regenerative power.

Reader's Guide

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

2006-01-14T23:54:00.000-05:00

While a music student in Vienna, violinist Michael Holme falls in love with pianist Julia McNicholl. They play together in a string trio, but when Michael has a nervous breakdown because of tensions with his stern and demanding violin teacher he abruptly leaves Vienna--and Julia--without warning. When, after some months pass, he tries to contact Julia again, he gets no reply. Ten years later, still in love with her, he meets her again in London when she attends a concert he is giving with his string quartet, the Maggiore. Still a performing pianist, she is now married to an American banker, has a child, and because of an auto-immune disease, is gradually going deaf. Unable to resist the power of their past, they begin to see each other again, this time under the shadow of Julia's marriage and her tragic hearing loss. Julia agrees to tour Vienna and Venice with Michael and the Maggiore Quartet and for a brief, magical time everything seems possible.

Reader's Guide

Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

2006-01-14T23:50:00.000-05:00

A mystery and a love story spanning five decades and an epic portrait of passion and ambition set against the beautiful, brutal landscape of Newfoundland. In this widely acclaimed novel Johnston has created two of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: Joey Smallwood, who claws his way up from poverty to become Newfoundland's first premier; and Sheilagh Fielding, who renounces her father's wealth to become a popular columnist and writer, a gifted satirist who casts a haunting shadow on Smallwood's life and career. [Courtesty of Ramdon House, ReadingGroupGuides.com]

Reading Guide

Hominids by Robert Sawyer

2006-01-14T10:02:00.000-05:00

Ponter Boddit, a physicist in a world in which Neanderthals are the dominant primates, is performing a quantum computing experiment in a Canadian mine, where cosmic rays won't disturb the test's delicate parameters. Suddenly, he is transferred into a heavy water tank in the same mine, but in the universe in which humans predominate. Human scientists are alarmed, then amazed by the spluttering Neanderthal in modern clothing with a curious AI implant in his wrist. Ponter's scientific partner, Adikor, is equally shocked, but what's more, he now faces an inquiry into his best friend's disappearance and suspected murder. Ponter is a most winning creation--thoughtful, brave, and charming as, facing the loss of everything he loves, he befriends a wounded female scientist in the strange human world. The smaller-scale, peaceful, environmentally savvy world of Ponter's people is equally well realized, though Sawyer loses a little steam trying to pin humanity's woes on organized religion. [Booklist]

Birdsong by Sebasian Faulks

2006-01-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

In 1910 a young Englishman, Stephen Wraysford, goes to Picardy, France, to learn the textile business. While there he plunges into a love affair with the young wife of his host, a passion so imperative and consuming that it changes him forever. Several years later, with the outbreak of World War I, he finds himself again in the fields of Picardy, this time as a soldier on the Western Front. A strange, occasionally bitter man, Stephen is possessed of an inexplicable will to survive. He struggles through the hideously bloody battles of the Marne, Verdun, and the Somme (in the last named, thirty thousand British soldiers were killed in the first half hour alone), camps for weeks at a time in the verminous trenches, and hunkers in underground tunnels as he watches many of the companions he has grown to love perish. In spite of everything, Stephen manages to find hope and meaning in the blasted world he inhabits.
Sixty years after war's end, his granddaughter discovers, and keeps, Stephen's promise to a dying man. Sebastian Faulks brings the anguish of love and war to vivid life, and leaves the reader's mind pulsating with images that are graphic and unforgettable.

Reading Group Guide

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

2006-01-14T09:54:00.000-05:00

Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God. [courtesy of Harvest Books, ReadingGroupGuides.com]

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Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

2006-01-14T09:44:00.000-05:00

Under "a blossoming pear tree" in West Florida, sixteen-year-old Janie Mae Crawford dreams of a world that will answer all her questions and waits "for the world to be made." But her grandmother, who has raised her from birth, arranges Janie's marriage to an older local farmer. So begins Janie's journey toward herself and toward the farthest horizon open to her.
Zora Neale Hurston's classic 1937 novel follows Janie from her Nanny's plantation shack, to Logan Killicks's farm, to all-black Eatonville, to the Everglades, and back to Eatonville--where she gathers in "the great fish-net" of her life. Janie's joyless marriage to Killicks lasts until Joe Starks passes by, on his way to becoming "a big voice." Joe becomes mayor of Eatonville and is just as determined as Killicks was to keep Janie in her proper place. Through twenty years with Joe, she continues to cope, hope, and dream; and after Joe's death, she is once again "ready for her great journey," a journey she now undertakes with one Vergible Woods, a.k.a. Tea Cake. Younger than Janie, Tea Cake nevertheless engages both her heart and her spirit. With him Janie can finally enjoy life without being one man's mule or another's bauble. Their eventful life together "on de muck" of the Everglades eventually brings Janie to another of her life's turning points; and after burying Tea Cake, she returns to a gossip-filled Eatonville, where she tells her story to her best friend, Pheoby Watson, and releases Pheoby to tell that story to the others. Janie has "done been tuh de horizon and back." She has learned what love is; she has experienced life's joys and sorrows; and she has come home to herself in peace [courtesy of Harper Collins, ReadingGroupGuides.com].

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Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes

2006-01-13T16:07:00.000-05:00

Weaving together a pair of remarkable stories, Jennifer Vanderbes explores the realms of love and anger, trust and betrayal, through the eyes of two exceptional young women living nearly a century apart who journey to the most remote island in the world-Easter Island. Though separated by time and circumstance, these women experience parallel turns of fate as their passions for knowledge draw them into all-consuming investigations of the island's mysterious past. But what begins as scientific inquiries soon unearth frightening, personal revelations for both women, and as they unravel the secrets of this exotic locale, they must face their own haunting secrets. A story about two journeys of transformation, forgiveness, and, ultimately, redemption, Easter Island is a powerful debut and a wonderfully intriguing book to discuss.
[Courtesy of Delta, ReadingGroupGuides.com]

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No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

2006-01-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

Mma Precious Ramotswe is a sturdy built woman living in Botswana. Using the money from her father's estate she buys herself a house and opens her own detective agency. With the help of a handbook that she had to send away for in the mail, she is able to help people solve their problems. A light fun read.

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A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

2006-01-11T23:28:00.000-05:00

Writing from his home in Toronto, Canada in 1987, John Wheelwright narrates the story of his childhood. Peppering his narrative with frequent diary entries in which he chronicles his outrage against the behavior of the Ronald Reagan administration in the late 1980s, Wheelright tells the story of his early life in Gravesend, New Hampshire, when his best friend was Owen Meany, who he remembers as the boy who accidentally killed Wheelwright's mother and made Wheelright believe in God. The narrative of A Prayer for Owen Meany does not follow a perfect chronology, as John pieces together the story he wants to tell.

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